Viewers will pay $4.99 a month for channel memberships giving them access to exclusive content including livestreams, extra videos or shout-outs on channels with more than 100,000 subscribers. Creators will also be able to sell merchandise like shirts or phone cases directly on theirchannels, the company said.

YouTube returns a small part of its advertising revenue to content creators who regularly accuse the platform of giving them only crumbs.